I mentioned in my last newsletter that I was woefully behind in designing my worldbuilding for my new series. This morning I was doing writer sprints (15 minutes x 4) and chatted with a writer friend from Glasgow, Scotland. She’s a fantasy writer and much more of an outliner than I. I mentioned how I was struggling to get this short story right.
If you’re strictly a mystery reader, then you may think that worldbuilding is limited to Sci-Fi. It’s not. Think of the worldbuilding that went on for the Bridgerton series. I don’t know enough about that era to understand if the creators got it right—apparel, furniture, word expressions, etc, are different for a historical novel as compared to the present day.
I introduce folks from the Elven realm, then I hit a roadblock with how this plays out for Elves when they are on Earth. I routinely mention time, distance, days of the week in my mystery novels, but what do any of those qualifiers mean to an elf who should live for centuries? I had to search Reddit for what Elves eat, how they would understand English, and communicate with another world.
My Scottish writing friend suggested I stop worrying about all that and get the story down. I can leave an “XO” for every part of the story that I want to decide how my Elven warrior will respond to something on Earth. Despite having published twenty-three books, starting a new series is daunting. It’s even more daunting with a new genre, but I like the premise of this story. I can see Dr. Stefanie Jones teaming up with Warrior Lord Gormon Mialynn to recapture the some fifty elven prisoners loose on Earth. Some of the prisoners are harmless and got an unfair sentence two centuries ago, while others have the ability to harm or kill us earthlings. It will be up to Dr. Jones to save the patients in her emergency room by day and search for the prisoners with Gormon on her off hours. There will be plenty of murder and mystery as the story unfolds.
Other than writing, I expect this will be a quiet summer. I have no vacations planned and I think I am finally done playing whack-a mole with my landscape watering system which has been a huge time suck.
Happy Solstice!
Alec